The Recording Academy has been around for 5 decades. It was established in order to honor achievements in the recording arts. Unlike other musical award programs, the Recording Academy's 'Grammy Award' does not rely on album sales or chart positions but is an award that is voted on by artist and technician peers in the recording industry.
The Recording Academy is based in the U.S. and has a primary focus on music recorded in English. As of 2008, there are nominations in 11 fields and 110 categories within these fields. Of these, only 2 fields are not focused on English-oriented music: Latin Music, with 9 categories and World Music with 2 categories.
The Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, known simply as the Latin Recording Academy, was founded in 1997 after almost 10 years of discussion. It is headquartered in Miami. It follows all the same voting rules as the National Recording Academy does except that the membership is multi-national and releases eligible for awards can be issued both inside and outside the U.S.
This new recording association expanded awards given to Spanish and Portuguese language recordings (although Latin music in English is also eligible for nomination). As of 2007, there are 17 fields and 49 categories of musical recording recognized and rewarded at the Latin Grammy Awards program.
The first Latin Grammy Awards program was held on September 13, 2000 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It was broadcast on CBS in English although many of the speeches were in Spanish. It was the first time that CBS presented Spanish-language ads with English subtitles. According to Neilson Media Research, it drew 9% of the U.S. viewing audience, although there are no numbers for the global viewing public. That same year, the 'regular' Grammy Awards drew 27%.
Almost immediately, claims were made that Mexican Regional music, the largest selling genre of Latin music sold in the U.S., was being under-represented. Emilio and Gloria Estefan received the brunt of the criticism; they had been instrumental in promoting the Latin Recording Academy and it was felt that their bias towards non-Mexican genres was the root of the problem. Fonovisa, one of the largest 'Regional Mexican' record companies, boycotted the program.
The second annual Latin Grammy Awards program was due to be broadcast on September 11, 2001. Since we all know that was the date of the World Trade Center / Pentagon bombings, the program was cancelled. The awards were passed out Oct. 31, 2001 at a press conference at the Conga Room in Los Angeles.
Since then, the awards program has moved around, from Los Angeles to Miami to New York and finally, in 2007, to Las Vegas. In 2005, the awards program was moved to Univision and broadcast entirely in Spanish, with English sub-titles. In 2008, the Latin Grammy Awards go back to Los Angeles and the newly built Nokia Theatre at LA Live.
